Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Why have I posted nothing new other than the thing about my FINISHED NOVEL (see below)? I'm busy trying to figure out how on earth to put a miniblog in the sidebar of this blog. Blogger's help page on the subject really doesn't answer my question about how to do this with two blogspot-hosted blogs, and when I e-mailed for further assistance, they claimed that everything I needed to know was on that page. Obviously this is not true, and I am now very frustrated. I need something like "multiblogging for semi-idiots." Grr. I think I'll post something on the Blogger Forum and see what happens.

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

It's 12:45 on a Tuesday morning, and I have officially finished the final chapter of my novel. Of course, it's still the first draft, so it really doesn't feel done. But I guess the major work is over. At least, I hope so...More updates soon, I promise. Real blog stuff, not just excuses for not having posted anything.

Monday, December 13, 2004

...A Damn Hell Ass King. This site is a collection of quirky blogs, zines, forums, and so forth. You could waste hours surfing links here. Hell, you could waste days just browsing Fametracker alone. All the sites are affiliated with Uber Interactive, a Canadian outfit located in the alternately-hella-humid-and-bitterly-freezing city of Toronto. Except for the sweltering/freezing part, it makes moving to Canada seem even more appealing.

Saturday, December 11, 2004

A bit of a hiatus--very disappointing. During said hiatus the following occurred:

I finished my temp job. Yay!

I applied for a freelance writer position--possibly doing advertorials, after reading between the lines of the ad--at the Modesto Bee.

I wrote a separate letter to prod the Modesto Bee Features Editor about the column proposal I sent her in October.

I received a two-line rejection e-mail from Family Circle for a humor piece I wrote. The rejection was terse at best. Not even a salutation or a closing. Not even "Dear Writer." D'oh.

I considered the idea of creating a third blog, a sort of haiku diary of my life. Unfortunately, both the blog names that I thought of were taken: Haiku Diary (the obvious one) and ADHD (Aquafortis' Daily Haiku Diary). So I'm a little at a loss as to what I should name the thing, or whether I should simply incorporate it into this existing blog. Any suggestions appreciated.

Along with Rob and his dad, I participated in the Christmas Tree 5K Run put on by Modesto's ShadowChase Running Club. Much to my surprise, I received a 3rd place medal for women in my 10-year age bracket. On the other hand, I was 3rd out of 3. Not so impressive sounding, although I did beat one guy in my age bracket. According to the race pace calculator, I ran around an 11-min, 20-sec mile (I finished 5K in 35:15). I'm pretty happy, since I kept up a steady pace the entire time. Plus, Rob got 3rd place out of 4 in his age bracket, and Rob's dad won his age bracket--no competitors for him, for some reason, but he still beat the two of us by at least 8 minutes. Rob ran with me, like a nice husband.

Saturday, December 04, 2004

By the way, the first person to post the next few lines to that quote up in the header gets a prize. Uh, I'll tell you what the prize is later, when I think of it. Just add a comment to this posting. If you know the answer, it should be fairly apparent what lines I'm referring to. No cheating with Google!

Last night I went to my very first poetry slam, right here in Modesto! That's right, Modesto has a monthly poetry slam of its own. Amazing. Stupendous. If you're into that sort of thing. I had a pretty good time, actually, though it's really not my scene. It was the 2nd Annual Ill List Invitational, and I must say, the randomly selected judges sure did like everything. Nobody got below an 8.0. It was a bit strange. I might write an article about my experiences sometime--"Adventures of a Poetry Slam Newbie" or the like. (Struggling Writer Inside My Head: "Must...capitalize...on...every...experience...for...writing...purposes....")

I write. I create. I put some of that here. Read at your own risk. If there were an ampersand code for a little skull-and-crossbones, I'd totally be using it right now.

The term "aqua fortis" was the alchemical nomenclature for nitric acid, a necessary component in etching onto zinc plates for intaglio printmaking. I now use copper plates and ferric chloride almost exclusively, as they are much less toxic, but I still like the sound of "aqua fortis."